


Nightshade Honey

by KriegsaffeNo9



Category: Original Work
Genre: Afterlife, Bittersweet Ending, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 22:10:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19895149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriegsaffeNo9/pseuds/KriegsaffeNo9
Summary: Death is cruel and the Afterwhen is a vicious place.  The Psychopomps see souls through to their final resting places.It's Karen's first job, and her charge doesn't want to go where his family wants him to go.





	Nightshade Honey

Karen felt a vibration from the ether, a perfect note like a plucked string on a harp: a man has died. She dropped her book and waded through two weeks' worth of detritus to the Smokebox, prying open the hatch and climbing into the cold leather seat. More information flooded into her mind: a car accident, the driver inebriated by an undetermined substance. Identified now as Robert Maltin, age 27. Destination: Calyfearne.

As she pulled the Smokebox shut she realized too late that she had idly tossed a takeout bag at the box a few days ago as she waited for her license in the mail. The ether had plucked a mournful note for a woman, Lorrie Carlisle, age 67, destination: Cockaigne. Lacking a license she was stuck listening to terse status updates on the dead. She could have tuned out of the ether, worry about it when that blessed sheet of paper was finally in her hands, but she was under the impression that impotent rage would lend a righteous fury to her debut as a psychopomp.

Yesterday the license had finally arrived in a crisp manila envelope, so of course nobody bothered dying. Morbid as it was, she was eager to go on her first proper flight.

She plucked up the bag with her toes and kicked it away, along with a sock that had somehow migrated here, operating the interior levers and switches as she did so. She slammed the Smokebox lid shut, sealing her in to the pod. The Smokebox was a quasi-portable sauna, designed not to steam away fat but to nudge Karen into a surreal heat-high. Ideally without killing her, thus the array of safety switches. Dying while on a psychopomp job was a sign of poor form and lack of preparedness.

Miles away, on the other side of town, the woman who would be the bane of her existence for years to come uncapped a little bottle of nightshade honey. One leg hung over the edge of her bed, her bare toes tickling the hardwood floor; an air conditioner hummed in the windowsill, freezing air raising goosebumps on her pale skin. Sweet honey drizzled onto her tongue, the bottle held in a hand which was both hers and several hundred miles away from where her consciousness lay trapped in her little fleshy body. The honey was brewed by Afterwhenized bees from the nectar of belladonna--thus the name.

Not that she needed much help, but as Karen's Smokebox began to grow unbearably hot, Iris's mind began to grow quite pleasantly numb, the minimal effort it took to stay awake replaced by the sugary dream of poison honey.

Sweat poured out of Karen's pores. Her clothes--a white tee and boxer shorts--were soaked as if she'd just taken a dip in a hot tub. The sweat saturated the leather seat, the salt-smell profoundly strong and heady. Just outside the Smokebox a thudding drum-beat lulled her swooning brain into an easy spiral of sleepiness. The boundaries of the box closed in on her, wrapped tight, the forge-hot filaments folding around her arms and pressing against her back. There was no pain; the sensation was as liberating and climactic as the hiss of water bursting to steam on hot coals. The Smokebox went from a small pod to a cage to a coffin to what it dreamed it was--a suit of armor.

Karen woke up, her fragile spirit bound in steel plate and carried aloft by a chorus of rocket thrusters. Above her was the sick green of the Afterwhen skies, its searing magenta sun glinting off her power armor.

A soul in the Afterwhen was all but helpless, subject to the soul-hungry predators within. A psychopomp like Karen abused their living bodies to harden the soul into an empowered defender, a shepherd to the dead. Most psychopomps made their souls into sorcerers, demons, dragons, angels; Karen cast her soul in the mold of Johnny Rico, Tony Stark, and John-117.

Here the abstract ether was a platinum ribbon of information, streaming past her helmed head and toward the Robert Maltin, age 27, burying itself somewhere behind towers of pallid stucco. Formicans--how wonderful.

She tore through the unspeakable sky like a meteor, smashing through one of the formican towers, leaving flame and death in her wake. Robert was backed into a corner where two smaller towers met, three dog-sized drones closing in on him, tasting the stuff of his soul with long, feathery antennae. She spun up a massive rotary gun and let 'er rip, raking thousands of screaming rounds across the oversized insects. She fell like a comet and landed like a feather, posing as dramatically as she could before him.

His soul was an impressionist self-portrait drawn with a shaking hand. "Are--am--what happened?" he said. "What's going on? Am I dreaming? Am--"

"You've died, Robert," said Karen. The voice of her soul was a rough baritone, more fatherly than motherly. "I'm here to protect you."

Robert trembled. "No. I... I can't..."

She kneeled, face to face with him. Face to featureless face plate, rather, but close enough. "It's okay, Robert. Your struggles are over. Paradise is at hand."

"No," he said. "This can't be happening. I have a meeting at ten. I have lunch with Tania at one--we're moving soon--I--"

"I'm sorry." She pried off the faceplate. "I really am. It's not easy to hear, but this is--hang on." She scooped him up in one arm and flew away, peppering the boiling hive of formicans with bolts of fire. No use having the Talk surrounded by soul-eating ant monsters. Flying drones swarmed out of the burning hives, chasing after her. Easy pickings; they fell to the earth in smoldering pieces. If there had been a queen, she might have been in trouble. She evened out to a hover and took inventory of the situation.

First, there was the matter of Robert Maltin, age 27, at present holding on to a pauldron for dear life, overwhelmed by the otherness of the Afterwhen. Orange clouds streaked overhead like trails of flame.

"It's rough, I know," she said.

"...for the baby..." he mumbled. "A new house for the baby."

She winced, snapping the face plate back in place. "Death's a bitch. But you're going to a place where all the awfulness of life will fade away. Time is meaningless in a heaven. Your wife and baby will be waiting for you there, and you'll be waiting for them. And all will be well." She twanged the ether cord again, and the silver line wound past her head, darted across the nightmare countryside, and vanished over the horizon. Calyfearne was a long ways away, and the longer the journey the more likely she'd bump into Zipperheads. Maybe if she flew high enough... Yeah, that was the trick.

Robert Maltin, age 27, had nothing more to say, and she didn't intend to keep him hanging. She cracked her back, pointed herself at Calyfearne, and launched off. She left a glittering contrail behind her, the pale white vivid and strange against the green sky.

The ground fell further away as she rocketed into the sky, becoming a miniature landscape, then a topographical map. Up here she could see for centuries. There'd be monsters in the sky, too, but the worst flying monsters were easy to see coming. The ones on the ground were much more subtle. Below her the Afterwhen became a topographical map of skeletal forests, acid-green rivers, demonic civilizations bursting like petrified explosions. Even from here she could see the larger beasts of the land plod around, grazing on wreathes of organs dangling from bone trees. There were no signs of Zipperhead settlements, but that could change in an instant.

The ether cord she followed and which followed her thrummed. Information was being fed to the psychopomps back home: Robert Maltin, age 27, was in the custody of Karen Kaczorowski, presently en route to Calyfearne. On one hand, it advertised her success to everyone plugged in to the ether. On the other hand, it advertised that should she tragically fall in the line of duty, the glory of returning Robert Maltin, age 27, to the final resting place of his fathers was now open to any psychopomp of sufficient daring and skill.

Of course, it was not an invitation to wrest her prize free from her arms. Such competition was anathema to the profession, and the immense payout for bringing in a soul was in no way a temptation to prey on one's own peers.

She felt the strangest urge to make small talk with her charge He was her first client, after all, and her teacher had been rather glib with the dead. Then again, Karen had practiced with cancer patients and old men and women who had migrated near where their heavens lay. They had an eternity of bliss to look forward to. The worst they had to worry about were the occasional ego tyrant or soul scorcher more ballsy than smart. Robert, though. He was heavy, his soul leaden with memory and wish and regret. Heaven was little comfort to a life unlived. So she flew in silence but for the roar of her rockets and the faint but growing whir of--

A golden mass five times her size swiped her aside. She clenched Robert close and tried to steer herself back on course. She fired off a spray of rounds from the autocannons on her legs as she sought whatever-it-was that had landed on her out of the green. It was almost too late when she registered Iris Long, Nightshade Honey herself, swooping in for the kill, barbed stinger beaded with poison. She twisted out of the way, a long scratch torn down the armor plating on her upper arm--the arm holding Robert.

She sent bolts of flame searing into Iris's belly. Now she could make sense of Iris at last, a collision of woman and bee, maybe twenty feet tall, gossamer wings buzzing on her forearms and calves, augmented by draconic wings unfurling from her back. A six-segmented mouth split open on her face, spitting mocking laughter as she dove at Karen again, her stinger clenched between her thighs like a bloated, toxic phallus.

Karen caught the stinger between her feet, which at present were spewing out rocket exhaust. The blast ignited Iris's abdomen, sending her flying away with a burning ass. A moment's peace, thank God. "Robert!" Karen yelled. "Are you okay?"

"What was that?! What the hell was that?!" he screamed.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine! Me, that depends--"

A barrage of tiny stingers--tiny by comparison, they were as long as Karen's middle finger--rained from Iris. Karen dodged the hail of fire, contorting into painful, impossible poses to keep Robert Maltin, age 27, safe from the blast.

So trapped in a column of stingers, Iris had no trouble landing a bolt of lightning at one of Karen's boots. For a moment she was trapped in the stifling heat of the Smokebox, choking on the stink of her own sweat, her clothes clinging to her like wet tissue--and she was back in the Afterwhen, her rocket boots sputtering, an unpleasant numbness racing down her body. Robert--was in freefall below her, Iris careening by like a crashing jet. Shit!

In a fit of inspiration she latched onto the passing Iris like a tick, climbing down slick carapace, taking pot shots at Iris's jewel-eyed head. "Hey, kid," Iris said, grasping Karen by the head, "The day's just beginning, I'm sure there's--"

A shower of rockets launched from pods on her back and into Iris's face. With a little love-tap from her rocket boots Iris spiraled out of control. She rocketed back to Robert, snagged him, and set back off for Calyfearne.

"Sorry about that!" she said. "Some guys, they just can't take--"

"It's coming back!" Robert said.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Karen said.

"Faster! Fly faster!"

"This is as fast as I go!" She poured a little more juice into the rockets, her armor beginning to creak ominously--but juice was a metaphor, the rockets were a metaphor, just as her armor was metaphorical and the creaking of the armor from strain was metaphor. The armor had no limits because it was not really armor; it was an expression of herself, the strength of her soul, and a newbie like her could only pull off so many miracles.

It dawned on Karen that she had been first on the scene to help Robert Martin, age 27, because Iris had been busily blasting the competition out of sacred reverie. Miracles like flying at the spiritual equivalent of supersonic speed were difficult for Karen. Miracles like escaping Iris Long were a little out of her reach. And Iris Long was closing the distance, wings of spirit-flesh and spirit-gossamer more than keeping pace with spirit imitations of chemical rocketry.

"So, uh, Robert. Good news. Looks like an expert's going to get you to Calyfearne," said Karen, remarkably calm. "Glad to have helped you out a bit, though."

"But--I don't want to go to Calyfearne," he said.

"I know, it hurts having--"

"My wife isn't going to Calyfearne. She's going to Fiddler's Green."

In the realm of the living, Karen's blood ran cold. Son of a bitch.

"It's--it's a long story. But my wife, she wants to go to Fiddler's Green. Our families want nothing to do with each other, it was--"

"One sec!" Karen said, abruptly cutting the power to her boots. It would take a moment for the Afterwhen's simulation of gravity to catch up with her. For a few seconds, she had a new ocean of power to tap. Iris was closing in for the kill, fearless, unintimidated by the science fiction posturing of a new psychopomp. She hadn't noticed the little handles on Karen's hips, nor did she seem to care when Karen pulled one free. The shape was odd--a rubberized handle with a filigreed handguard. That should have been a hint, but Iris brought her stinger to bear and aimed it at Karen's chest.

Karen spent a little puff of energy jetting ever-so-slightly out of the way of the attack and ignited the plasma blade, ramming the point at Iris's chest. In part the concentration of her power in one point was sufficient to crack her shell; in part Iris's sheer abandon sent the blade plunging through her vitals; and in part the correctness of a young knight slaying a dragon saw the blade tear free of her back, wrenching her wing out of place. She rolled with the passing of Iris's mass and, for the length of a breath, watched the monster plummet, yellow, syrupy ichor pouring from her wounds.

And she was off again, away from the ether chord, which tugged at her shoulders as she flew skew to the route it suggested.

"What's she doing? She still after us?" Karen said.

"I--I guess she isn't--she's--she disappeared!" said Robert, not really assured at the sight. "What the hell was that?"

"Iris Long. Way out of my league." She plucked the ether cord, trying to find the way to Fiddler's Green. It resisted being pulled off the trail to Calyfearne. "Keep an eye out for her. She'll be back."

"You stabbed her in the chest."

"If I were tougher it'd stick. At best we've got a few minutes before she pops back in." The cord changed direction, looping away from one horizon to another. The trip had just been quartered, thank God. Of course, changing the cord's direction meant everyone listening in now knew that she was taking him to Fiddler's Green, family included.

Welp, guess this was gonna be pro bono.

She counted the seconds as she followed the cord to Fiddler's Green. Her attention kept shifting from the ground to Robert to the sky to Robert again and then to the cord, trying to catch snippets of wisdom. Now and again it repeated that she had changed course, and now and again there were pleas to turn back. The cord's note was high, cloying, but sincere, a good child begging a parent to make the right decision. It was hard to ignore, which was the point.

"Fiddler's Green. Nice place, I hear," Karen said.

There was a mountain looming ahead in the atmospheric mist. Or something like it. There was ample debate as to how much of the Afterwhen kowtowed to physics and how much was simply the cumulative common sense and narrative tradition of the human race.

"Me too," Robert said. "My wife was the one who read about it. Tania, she's a librarian... she found this old book, from the 1940s I think. It was full of poetry written by a psychopomp about what he'd seen of the heavens."

It was a natural mountain, for the most part. It didn't seem to be sculpted or forged, although one large outcropping of rock seemed to have been clipped evenly in half.

"On the Furthest Shore. Keely. That's practically a textbook for us," said Karen.

"There was a poem in there about Fiddler's Green. You know the one, don't you?"

"There were a few. Let me guess. The one he wrote before going there?"

He nodded.

She nodded back. "That's a popular one for psychopomps. Soldiers, too. You're a little out of the target demographic, but hey, heaven's heaven, right?"

Fiddler's Green was not too far away now. The cord was silent, besides the faint background thrum which constantly reverberated in her ears.

"Yeah. Tania loves the sea. When we retired, we were going to move there. There... there was an old house we were looking at. Maybe a century old. Just a few miles away from the beach. We looked at all the photos, planned out which room would be what. The bedroom was gonna face the sea. We'd wake up with the sun."

The mountain was passing them by. The outcropping had not been clipped or snipped or simply eroded away by some impossible force. It had been unzipped, and recently. Fine silver teeth lined the edge of the cut. Within the severed stone lay a profound darkness.  
Zipperheads.

"I'm sorry, Robert," Karen said. She hugged him, a delicate gesture in a suit like hers.

The cord thrummed. Robert Maltin, age 27, destination: Calyfearne, en-route: Fiddler's Green, escort: Karen Ankou, pursuit: Iris Long. Iris was officially on their case now. Guess one of the relatives caught wind. She grit her teeth and lowered her velocity, anticipating a hailstorm of stingers or a bouquet of lightning bolts.

"Hold on tight," Karen said. "This isn't gonna be fun."

The mountain gave way to a green and rolling valley eaten through by worm-trails of darkness. She could see the end of the silver cord not too far away. It wouldn't be out of the question to fly around the Zipperhead territory. She'd just need a little air and hope that they didn't notice the--

\--zipper opening just ahead of her, unzipping the sky. A small, human-like body fell from it as if into water, the orifice closing behind it. It was female-shaped, tightly clad in clashing, eye-searing rags. A zipper ran up its body from one foot up its leg around its body and neck and finally looped twice around its head, forming a crude slash of a mouth and eyes. It looked at her.

"What the hell is that--" Robert said, cut off as Karen lurched to a halt.

"Here it goes!" she said, maneuvering jets igniting across her body. "Close your eyes!"

The sky unzipped around them and she was off, just ahead of them. An awful black light, an un-light which stabbed through the sunlight, flowed through the yawning mouths they left open; she could feel the cold nipping at her heels. The zippers chased her in a wide, lazy spiral, forcing her to zig and zag in neck-snapping, whiplash-inducing hairpin turns. If she slowed, she and Robert would be bathed in their baleful radiance. If she kept ahead of them, dodged where they were about to open, dart away when new zippers opened around them, then she would be inextricably led to the Zipperhead herself. All it needed to do was wait and watch as it forced her closer and closer, until without moving so much as an inch they would be in its grasp, and it would unzip them.

Man was she going to be sick of that word after this fight. Or dead. Or worse than dead.

Three new fasteners appeared just ahead of her, and she fired off her main jets, blasting to the side, free of the zipper pattern. The zippers floundered. The sky had become a maze of holes and silver teeth, the perfect concealment. She fired off at full speed. By the time the Zipperhead swam free of its own reef she was out of its range. Suck it down, she thought.

"Hey, Robert. You can open your eyes," she said, glancing down at him.

He peered from behind his hands. "I peeked," he said.

"And that's why I told you to close 'em."

"Please say that's the only one we have to fight."

"Probably."

"'Probably' isn't yes."

"Zipperheads are solitary. Unless they're--"

The Zipperhead's mate appeared in front of them, a small, slender male, in dull colors.

"--oh fucking hell!" She kicked out of the way and emptied her missile banks at the male. The rockets burst around him, the explosions cut off as they were unzipped and folded inside out. The male flung a pair of fasteners at her in a tight spiral, a spear of midnight that whizzed past her head.

The female behind them was catching up, swimming between her zippers. Karen could just barely keep up with one Zipperhead trying to give her the Black Revelation. The realization that she was about to die struck her like one of the male's lances, a final and certain sensation that froze her blood.

No. Not today. She spun around, Robert hanging on to her shoulder as she emptied her machine gun at the male and spat bolts of flame at the female. He unzipped the bullets, she was far enough to simply twitch out of the way. Her retreat was cut short again and again as he fired zipper-blasts at her, and now a web of the female's zippers were encroaching, splitting the sky, almost sapping the air of that uncanny sensation of power--

Lightning. Four bolts flew from the naked sky and into the male, too fast to register, over as soon as she realized what happened. His flesh sizzled, his zipper was melted shut. A barrage of stingers punctured his soft body, and that was that.

Iris interposed her chitinous bulk between Karen and the female, who emitted a piercing static shriek at the death of her mate. "Run," Iris said in a grating, buzzing voice. "I got this."

"...thanks!" said Karen, and, not needing to be told twice, was off in a start, leaving Iris to handle the female. Thunder rattled the heavens behind her.

Nothing else stood in their way. When the thunder had faded at last, they were here.

It was the only structure they'd seen that looked man-made. It was a short pier, great wooden poles flanking either side of the first step. The pier faded into mist a few yards into the water; reflected in the mist was a town, vague, dreamlike, a suggestion of rolling hills and old wood. Karen landed a short distance away, the rumble of her jets dying at last. Their absence left a yawning emptiness in her hearing. She returned Robert Maltin, age 27, to the ground.

He almost lost his footing. He was shaking.

"Here you go," she said. "Fiddler's Green."

He looked at her. "...thank you," he said.

"Glad to help," Karen said. She pried off her helmet. "I'm sorry that you had to come here so soon. If I could, I'd have dragged you back into your body myself. But your time came, and... well, I guess I'm happy I could get you here."

Robert hugged her. "Please," he said. "Tania Maltin. She's a little shorter than me, black hair. She lives at the apartment on Cypress Lane, room three three three. If it's not too much to ask, could you..."

"...see if she's alright. Yeah. I'll make sure."

"Thank you." He paused. "What's your name?"

"Karen. Karen Kaczorowski."

"I'm glad to have met you, Karen."

"See you on the other side, Robert."

He nodded. And he left.

He paused on the threshold, just before the piers. He paused a long time, looking into the misty otherside. It was the end, after all; the end of struggle, the end of worry, the end of everything. It was a step few could take without regret, and Karen knew he had some truly awful regrets. At last, after he balled his hands into fists, after he let out a final breath, he crossed the threshold, setting foot on the pier.

Something moved at the far end of the pier, past where it vanished, somewhere in the mist far away.

A waving hand?

No--two.

Whatever it was, Robert lost all hesitation, lost all fear, and he barreled down the pier, laughing, crying, and he was gone.

Rest in peace, thought Karen.

She reaffixed her helm. Time to check on Iris.

When she returned, she was fortunate enough to witness Iris pinning the female Zipperhead against the earth and ripping her to pieces like a bloody rag doll. Iris cast the Zipperhead's remains to the wind, cackling in triumph. She looked up at Karen with emotionless compound eyes. "He made it, didn't he?" she said.

"Yeah. He's safe."

"Good show, newbie."

"Thanks for the help."

"Nothin' doin'. We're in the business of eternal life, y'know."

"I'd appreciate it more if you didn't try to kick my ass earlier."

Iris shrugged. "Hey, it's a business. I won't be so merciful next time."

"Unless there's more Zipperheads, right?"

"Eh. You'll get the hang of fighting 'em eventually. Then we'll see who's best. Here's a hint: it's me."

"Thanks again."

"By the by, I'll take the flack for this one. You go home, get yourself a pizza or somethin', don't worry about this politics bullshit. You've got a lot of politics goin' ahead. First timers, last thing they need is politics."

"You're alright, you know that, Iris?"

"I try."

Iris waved, and Karen awoke.

She smelled awful. She had to pry herself out of the seat, then flopped onto the carpet and crawled over to the cooler she had set on the table. She took a long, painful drought of cool water, the stuff burning in her gullet. She lay on the carpet waiting for her strength to return, getting used to a world where gravity was consistent and she didn't have a suit of powered armor to strap on.  
She was reduced to deciding between a shower and something to eat. Shower first, she decided. She wound up puking not-quite-warm water and stomach acid in the shower, so that was a pretty good decision. When her stomach settled and she didn't smell like the floor of a locker room, she slumped into the kitchen and fixed herself a little meal of mixed berries and an apple.

Pizza sounded good--let's not say "like heaven"--but that would come later.

So, that was her first mission. She'd almost been tagged out, almost been killed, and was, in the end, victorious. Not that she'd be getting paid for this, oh no. But fuck it, that wasn't why she signed--

Her phone rang.

"Hello?" she said.

"Is--is this Karen? The psychopomp?" someone on the other end said.

"Y-yeah."

"Karen... I... my name is Tania. My husband..."

"Yeah. He's in Fiddler's Green. When the time comes, he'll be there."

"Thank you."

"Glad to help."

"Karen..."

"Yes, Tania?"

"Train me."

"...pardon?"

"I want--I want to be a psychopomp. Teach me."

She held the phone away from her head a moment and wondered what in the hell she would say.

"Are you still pregnant?" Karen said at last.

"Yes."

"Two years. If you're still ready, ask again."

"I will. Thank you. For everything."

"Goodbye. My condolences. Uh, no charge, I insist."

"Goodbye. Thank you. God bless you."

She plugged the phone back into her charger.

She loved her job already.


End file.
